Taner Yildiz, the energy minister for Turkey, has said that an announcement will be made by the weekend as to which country, and which companies, will win the contract to build Turkey's second nuclear power station.
Experts have estimated that Turkey will overtake Britain as Europe's third largest user of electricity within a decade, and in preparation for this, as well as an attempt to reduce their dependence on imported oil and gas, Turkey has set out plans to construct several new nuclear power plants.
Yildiz said that "China and Japan are the front runners" to build the $22 billion power plant, but a consortium of Japanese companies including; Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, and Itochu Corp, along with GDF Suez of France, are expected to be the overall winners of the tender.
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In March the Turkish media reported that Japanese and Turkish officials would sing the deal in May that would see the construction of four pressurized water nuclear reactors in a facility at Sinop, on the Black Sea. Construction will begin in 2017, and the whole plant will have a capacity of 4.5 to 5 gigawatts.
In 2010 Turkey signed a deal with Rosatom of Russia to build the country's first nuclear power plant. Construction on this project will begin in 2015 with the first electricity expected to be produced in 2019.
By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com
Joao is a writer for Oilprice.com More